In the Sierra 



to be lost in the Merced, where climate, 

 vegetation, inhabitants, all are different. 

 Emerging from its last gorge, it glides in 

 wide lace-like rapids down a smooth incline 

 into a pool where it seems to rest and com- 

 pose its gray, agitated waters before taking 

 the grand plunge, then slowly slipping over 

 the lip of the pool basin, it descends another 

 glossy slope with rapidly accelerated speed 

 to the brink of the tremendous cliff, and 

 with sublime, fateful confidence springs out 

 free in the air. 



I took off my shoes and stockings and 

 worked my way cautiously down alongside 

 the rushing flood, keeping my feet and 

 hands pressed firmly on the polished rock. 

 The booming, roaring water, rushing past 

 close to my head, was very exciting. I had 

 expected that the sloping apron would ter- 

 minate with the perpendicular wall of the 

 valley, and that from the foot of it, where 

 it is less steeply inclined, I should be able to 

 lean far enough out to see the forms and 



